Thursday, July 30, 2009

We first met the Wieser family in Wieser-Druff: Introduction and Backstory. At that time there were two families living in this house: Bud Wieser, who at the time was single (and still is), and Dan and Misty Druff, who were married and started having children almost right away. Dan and Misty have since moved out with their 3 boys, and we’ll see them again soon in another update. Bud’s friend Luke Warm, who was a tombstone in the yard to start with and was later resurrected by Bud as a zombie also lives here, as does Bud’s alien son, Castor. At the end of our previous story, they had been joined by a new woman, Misty Cupp, who was eaten by the cowplant, subsequently resurrected, and has since become a permanent resident here. Here’s a quick look at their stats:

The first thing I did upon loading this lot was to roll secondary aspirations for the three adults, since I hadn’t set them previously. Here’s how they turned out (Luke’s kind of creeps me out):

I then checked Castor’s memories to see where he was at with the toddler training, because it’s been months since I played them and I had no idea what I’d managed to do with him before. Happily, he’s already learned all of his skills except the nursery rhyme. He must have been a fast learner, because he still has 2 days before he becomes a child.

Once I had finished spending the aspiration points, and getting reacquainted with the inhabitants and what was going on with them, I unpaused and play began. I’d deliberately created Misty to be a good match for Bud when I made her to replace the original Misty Cupp (see the intro linked above for that story), and it became immediately obvious that things were going to work out just fine between them. Just like any good 3-bolt couple under the influence of ACR, they headed straight for the sofa in the living room to, ah, get better acquainted, paying absolutely no attention to Luke and toddler Castor who were just in the next room through the archway. Thanks to photo-editing software, a shrub conveniently sprang up in front of the couch to preserve their modesty though ;)

Once they had finished and gotten dressed, Bud decided to make an honest woman of Misty and dropped to one knee and proposed. Nevermind that they could barely have known each other really since I had sent her out to be eaten by the cowplant as soon as I put her on the lot before, then shut it down as soon as I’d resurrected her. I guess the resurrection must have given them a huge relationship boost, and then their antics on the couch must have been enough to convince him she was the one for him because he rolled the want to get engaged to her as soon as they’d finished.

Misty happily accepted Bud’s proposal. Luke pulled himself away from his chessboard when he heard what was going on (one has to assume he was studiously ignoring the earlier sounds) and came in to stand by waiting to congratulate them.

Misty and Bud were both happy about the engagement, though Bud did turn to speak with his friend, who for some reason wanted to talk to him about Darice Ball.

After talking for a bit, they split up and all sought out different activities. Luke sat down on the sofa to watch some TV, Misty sat down at the piano to practice, and Bud started teaching Castor a nursery rhyme after some tickling and snuggling. It soon became apparent that Castor was going to take after Bud in his love of music.

He didn’t really take to the nursery rhyme right away though and at first refused to even try repeating it with his father.

When that wasn’t making his dad stop singing at him, he showed him more emphatically what he thought of it.

Eventually though he warmed up to it and started catching on, beginning to swing his little arms and sing along with Bud.

Once Castor had finally learned the rhyme, Bud put him down for a nap while Misty made them some sandwiches for lunch. They all sat down together to eat, Luke and Bud discussed paranormal topics while Misty simply chowed down.

Bud had to work later that night, and Misty and Luke were both so exhausted by then that I barely kept one of them awake long enough to get Castor to bed. As toddlers are wont to do, he woke up around midnight and started screaming to be let out of his crib. I could have woken one of the adults up to let him out, but I decided to run a bit of a test here. I’ve heard mentions about how sometimes toddlers that have learned how to walk will manage to get themselves out of their crib, but I’ve never seen it happen, so I decided to see if Castor would do it. I wasn’t sure what the triggers for it are, but I knew as long as his fun was high he would just sit down in the crib and amuse himself for awhile till someone came to get him, so with testing cheats on I lowered his fun bar almost all the way so he’d really want out. As expected, he didn’t sit down, but continued to cry and scream and rattle the bars on the crib trying to get someone’s attention.

This went on for awhile, but he was showing no signs of trying to escape on his own, so I took his social meter way down as well, hoping that might spur him to get more pro-active about getting out of the crib. He simply continued to carry on like he had been though, looking more miserable as time passed and no one was coming to get him.

In the middle of all of this, Bud got home from work, and he came home with a promotion that put him at the top of the paranormal field.

He was exhausted by the time he got home, since he’d only gotten to sleep for a few hours before work earlier in the evening. I could have made him go let Castor out before letting him go pass out in bed, but I still wanted to see if Castor would try to free himself. So I left Bud to do whatever he wanted to, which was to go straight to bed, and then moved the camera back to Castor. I was still zoomed in close from going out to get a picture of Bud’s promotion, and so when I clicked it back over to Castor, this is what I saw:

Isn’t that enough to break your heart? It was for me, and I almost relented with the experiment since it was becoming pretty apparent he wasn’t going to try to climb out on his own. But, I was still hopeful, so I left him … until shortly thereafter I got a popup about how no one in the house was paying enough attention to Castor and he needed social interaction with the household. Then his icon disappeared from the left side of the screen, and when I zoomed out, sure enough, the social worker van was out front to take him away. I probably should have seen it coming but, well, forget that. I wasn’t going to let him be taken away when he’d likely have been fine if I hadn’t deliberately tanked his fun and social for the experiment, so I did something I almost never do, and exited without saving. Unfortunately I hadn’t saved since I’d started playing the lot, so I had to start all over with it, but it had only been about 24 hours, so wasn’t that bad to re-play. I took care to play the day through more or less just like I had before, so I didn’t take more pictures of it, just let the ones I’d taken before serve to show what happened. The main things I did different was I sent Misty to bed earlier in the evening in the same room that Castor would be in, so she was pretty much rested and ready to get up again by the time he woke up in the middle of the night this time. So she let him out, and all was well. Only I still haven’t gotten to see a toddler getting out of the crib on its own, and still don’t know how you can make that happen without having the social worker show up.

After getting up, Misty gave him some tickles and snuggles, got a bottle for him, then put him down to play with his toys while she went to try to find a job. There hadn’t been any openings in the Intelligence field the day before, but luckily there was now.

Since Bud had reached TOC in the Paranormal field, I could now let him look for a job in Education to go for his LTW. And as luck would have it, there was one available that night as well. So once he’d gotten home with the promotion, I had him sit down at the computer and take it before letting him go to bed.

Misty was wide awake still, so she sat down to practice the piano some more. Her wants were full of wanting to gain various skill points, and Creativity was one of them.

The next morning before they both went off to their new jobs, they were up early, sat down together to a pancake breakfast, then decided to go ahead and get married out on their deck. It was just a small affair with just the two of them, and Luke as witness. They still made it a formal affair though.

Getting married made them both very happy, and they both had good memories of it.

Shortly after the ceremony though, it was time for them to go to work. Bud had to leave about an hour earlier than Misty, and so his carpool had arrived almost as soon as they had finished. Misty’s first day on the job went well, and a good decision she made while checking out a missing cat case with her partner landed her a promotion right away.

Bud’s first day went equally as well, and he came home with a promotion also. It didn’t hurt that his skills are already all maxed from before due to the physiology bug that existed for awhile after AL came out. Yes, I admit it, I took full advantage of that while it lasted with several sims in this neighborhood.

That evening was Castor’s birthday as well, and with everything that was going on with the promotions and such, it almost caught me unawares. I realized it was about to happen just in time to get some good shots of him growing up though. Thanks to the attention he’d been getting the last few days, especially after almost losing him to the social worker, he grew up well.

Meanwhile, Luke, who is unemployed, had been working on his LTW of maxing all of his skills in between taking care of things around the house for Bud. Currently he was working on his body skill, and so I frequently had him working out on the weight machine. His needs deplete so fast though that I never can leave him there as long as I often can other sims.

The following day, Friday, was Castor’s first day of school. As all kids do, he came home with only a so-so report card, which he wasn’t very happy about.

Bud came home that afternoon with another promotion thanks to maxed skills and lots of family friends. This one put him at his second TOC and fulfilled his LTW after only two days in the Education field. He was quite impressed with himself.

His new LTW is another career one. Should be easy. If I can get that career to come up on the computer that is. He didn’t have any luck getting it the rest of the week here, so is currently still in Education until Natural Science comes up.

Misty had a good second day at work as well, and she also came home with another promotion. She had to start lower down the ladder though, so has further to climb to get to the top.

Bud had gone to take a nap after he got home from work (he was still trying to get switched over to working days instead of nights like he had been), so it was Misty who taught Castor how to do his homework that evening.

After Castor had finished his homework, and Bud had gotten up from his nap, they all sat down to have dinner together. Luke and Bud discussed television shows while Misty and Castor listened in.

Bud wanted another child, so that night he and Misty set about trying to make it happen. I didn’t notice until sometime later that there was only one curtain on the double window, and I’m not entirely certain how that happened.

The next day was Saturday, and after breakfast, Castor went to try playing the piano. And that was where he remained for the rest of the weekend pretty much. It wasn’t long before the flamenco lady showed up to offer him a membership at the music and dance lot.

Meanwhile, as Castor continued to remain glued to the piano, Luke worked on his body skill some more. Shortly after the flamenco lady had left, a coach showed up to offer Luke a membership to the fitness lot.

Things were humming along quite nicely in the household throughout the day, with Castor playing the day away on the piano, and Luke working on his body skill in between baths. I don’t think Castor ever stopped playing the entire day until he finally got tired in the evening and went to bed. I did keep an eye on his needs throughout, but everything was remaining well in the green, so I left him to it for as long as he wanted to continue. Luke and Misty had both had to work that day, and when they got home they did little out of the ordinary. So I was just kind of keeping an eye on everyone and letting them do as they would, when suddenly at some point during the evening I noticed there was a Llama on the couch.

WTH? I’m not sure when the Llama arrived…I guess I’d gotten so used to seeing them come and go at the University houses and just ignoring them when they did, that it just didn’t register with me at first. But when it finally did I got very confused. I’d never seen one just show up on a normal neighborhood lot like that before. What gives? While trying to puzzle out why the Llama was there, and what to do about it, I happened to mouse over her and saw who it was.

Those who have read the most recent University update might recall that Suzie Santander is the 3-bolt match that I found for Martin Ruben while playing him at University. I haven’t actually played her yet, but I did move him into an apartment after graduation, and had him invite her over and ask her to move in with him, which prompted her to age up to Adult. So she is no longer a college student, which means that it would seem I was right to have my reservations about making her playable, because apparently she’s going to continue to be a mascot as an adult. Except she was a cheerleader before, not a Llama, which just adds to the weirdness here.

Around this time, the household started getting ready for bed. Castor, who hadn’t taken time to change out of his pajamas all day, went first, finally exhausted from playing piano all day. I hadn’t heard any chimes the night before with Bud and Misty, so I had them try again, and they ended up just falling asleep afterwards. Luke was still up puttering around with something, and I was still keeping an eye on Suzie to see what she would do. I’d seen her leave the house, and thought she’d just decided to leave, but then I caught a glimpse of her out by the cowplant. Uh oh, looks like I neglected to lock the gate again after unlocking it the last time so Misty could get in there. And the cowplant obviously hasn’t been fed for awhile.

While I’m trying to figure out what, if anything, to do about this situation, Suzie makes a grab for the cake.

I’m still unsure how I feel about this, and I think I even paused it for a few minutes to decide whether or not to intervene. On the one hand, it would be a shame for Martin to lose his 3-bolt love before he even got a chance to really be with her as a playable couple, but on the other hand, it’s obvious that she’s going to end up being annoying, showing up at people’s houses uninvited and most likely randomly doing the school cheer at people. Decisions, decisions.

After debating it for a few minutes, I decided to just let things run their course, and I’d deal with whatever happened. So I unpaused, and watched the above scenes repeat themselves several times: the cowplant would dangle it’s cake toward Suzie, she’d make a grab for it, it would rear back and then lean forward to sniff her up good – but it never made a lunge for her. It would just settle back, put the cake out again, and the whole scenario would repeat again. Until suddenly, just as it looked like the plant was finally going to make the lunge to gobble her up – things flickered for a moment and then she just wasn’t there. Did it eat her? I wasn’t sure. But in looking carefully around its pen, both inside and out, I didn’t see a tombstone anywhere. And it didn’t look like the udder on its chin was enlarging. Hmm. And then I figured it out – Luke had apparently gone to bed right about then, and the game had kicked into fast speed when he fell asleep. I thought I’d seen a blur of her running out of the pen, but I wasn’t sure. The lack of a tombstone anywhere seems to indicate she did get away, though I forgot to go check hers and Martin’s lot to see if she was still there and alive and well. I’ll have to try to remember to check that next time I play, though I imagine I’ll find out eventually if she’s still around or not.

In other random happenings in the house, Bud had rolled the want in the first couple days to hire a butler. I ignored it at first because I didn’t think they really needed one, but he kept rolling it, so finally I’d given in and let him hire one. Overall the one they got seems to be pretty good. He doesn’t waste their food supplies making meals that no one’s going to eat because someone else just made one, and he keeps the house and yard nice and tidy. But he is prone to strange behavior at times.

I’m not sure what his problem was, but he stood there outside the one bathroom like that, alternating between X’d out thoughts of Misty and of Bud, sometimes burying his head in his hands and sometimes acting like he wanted to throw up. The two of them were occupying both bathrooms, and I think the butler was maybe wanting to get in to clean them, and having a freakout because he couldn’t.

Anyway, back to the story. The next morning I sent Bud out to feed the cowplant. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try to keep it fed so it would hopefully be less likely to eat random walk-bys.

As he was heading back into the house, the Games guy showed up to offer him a membership to his lot, finally catching up with him just inside the kitchen door. I guess feeding a cowplant counts as a gaming activity…I’m not sure what else he was doing around that time that would have triggered the visit.

Bud had the day off since it was still the weekend, and since Castor was hogging the piano again Bud was kind of at a loss for what to do. So I bought him a pottery wheel to keep him occupied, even though his preferred hobby is Music & Dance.

Misty had to work, and when she got home, she headed straight for the bathroom. Yep, chimes were heard the night before when I had them trying to get pregnant.

Meanwhile, Castor had been obsessively playing the piano all day again, and it wasn’t long before he’d maxed his Music & Dance enthusiasm and the flamenco lady came by again to give him a plaque for it. This makes Castor the youngest sim I’ve ever had max out in a hobby.

Bud continued working away at the pottery, and in due course, earned his bronze badge.

Later that afternoon, Misty had her first belly pop, and her pregnancy was official.

Castor had eventually given up his spot at the piano after getting his plaque, which gave Misty a chance to practice some more for awhile, and before long the flamenco lady was paying another visit to the house to offer Misty a membership to the lot. I forget why she was out on the porch when the lady caught up with her.

Castor continued with his piano obsession on Monday, both before and after school. But I got a surprise from him this day – since he maxed out his hobby enthusiasm, he now changes into his formal wear before he sits down to play. I’d never seen that before.

Later that evening, Bud helped his son with his homework. Castor had already learned to study from Misty, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to keep having him get help when he needed to do it. If nothing else, he’d be able to finish it up faster.

Misty had spent the day lounging in her pajamas, working on learning skills from books both for work and to satisfy wants. Late in the afternoon on Monday, she had her second belly pop.

On Tuesday, Castor came home with his first A+. I guess the extra homework help he’d gotten paid off.

He ran inside to show his report card to his father, who had been taking advantage of his day off to spend the day in his pajamas and to finally get some time on the piano.

The rest of the day and evening passed fairly uneventfully. I’d expected Misty to go into labor in the late afternoon or early evening, but she didn’t, and so I’d almost decided that I was remembering the number of days wrong and that I’d have to wait until next time to see her baby, since their week would be up first thing in the morning. Shortly after midnight, however, she awoke and went into labor.

I held my breath a bit at that point, waiting for the pop-up that would tell me if it was just one, or more than one. I groaned a bit when I saw this, since the triplets & quads hack has been taking fiendish delight in giving me 3 or 4 babies at once lately.

You can’t tell just from the pop-up how many it’s going to be really, since it will say TWO even when it’s THREE or FOUR. But there wasn’t much I could do about it at this point however many it was, so I just sat back and watch as the birth commenced, hoping it at least wouldn’t be quads again. The cinematic played, and Misty gave birth to the first baby, a boy with her eyes and hair color. Purely by chance, I managed to capture what I think is a rather lovely family portrait of her, the baby and Bud when I snapped the closeup shot of the baby.

She handed the baby to Bud, and then gave birth to number two, another boy who also had her eyes and haircolor.

And that’s where she stopped, with twin boys. After choosing names for them, I quickly paused to go redo one of the bedrooms into a nursery for them. They already had the cribs, first for Dan’s children with the first Misty, and then for Castor, so it was just a matter of moving furniture around a bit and putting up different wallpaper and carpeting. This was when I noticed there was only one single-wide curtain on the double window in the bedroom, so I replaced it with a double-wide one as well. The names I chose were just the first ones that popped into my head for “C” names. Don’t ask me why it was these names instead of more usual ones.

Carroll is the one on the left that Bud is holding, and Misty is holding Carmichael.

And that is where I decided to end the week with the Wieser Household, even though it was a few hours early. Here’s a parting screenshot of the household from the neighborhood view at the end of the week.

Next up will be the Druff household, with Dan and Misty Druff and their 3 sons. Will the newly resurrected and young-again Misty continue to be as fertile as she was before? Let’s hope not. Time will tell though. Until then, take care everyone.